Chapter Twenty One
FOR EVERYONE
The Lay Apostolate Foundation believes that the examples given in the last chapter are the tip of a lofty mountain peeking above the clouds. Hundreds of lay persons have started evangelizing on the internet. Hundreds more, despite busy and full lives, are vitally involved in parishes and in something as simple as name gathering for consecration to the Sacred Hearts.
A medical doctor in New York recently wrote and published a seven-hundred page book on religions and cults with a loving invitation to all to join the Catholic Church. He had previously written 67 other books and 34 pamphlets. He was president of the Cursillo movement in New York for 40 years, and of the Hispanic Catholic Charismatic Renewal in New York for 25 years.
Does this seem like a full-time apostolate?
On the contrary! In 1998, when he produced that 700-page book, he was still practicing medicine full time with more than 150,000 patients since 1961.
While many who know of God's final effort do NOTHING to implement it, the growing response of the laity is now one of great hope. As we mentioned before,
Pope John Paul II hailed this growing response in his millennial encyclical as one of the three greatest signs of hope in the Church.
The other two signs of hope seen by the Pope are ecumenism, and acceptance of charisms. The latter also seems especially evident in the laity.
Let us say it again: This is no reflection on the clergy. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, says the Council. This is God's Will for this third day of the "week of Fatima," this time of God's "final effort " to draw mankind from the reign of Satan and establish the reign of His Love.
This is the time when Our Lord, through His vicar on earth, is saying to the laity of the world: "You, too, go into My vineyard!" You are needed!
Keeping Marthe Robin alive for thirty years solely on His Sacrament of Love, Jesus asked her to make known His Will that the laity become involved even to the degree of making a five-day retreat, saying: "The laity will renew the Church."
The Message of Response
Most important, as we come to the end of this book on the third day of the Fatima week, is the message of response -the message of what to do.
That message was carefully worded by the Most Rev. John Venancio, the second bishop of Fatima.
We have cited all the above examples of lay involvement today because that is precisely the message given by the bishop in this most important apostolic directive of his Fatima episcopate.
For greater appreciation of his message, I would like to declare that I knew this holy bishop intimately. I traveled with him once to Russia, three times around the world, and once around the continent of Africa. In addition to being the Bishop of Fatima, he was one of the holiest and most dedicated persons I have ever known (I believe Bl. Padre Pio would agree). After his retirement, we saw him frequently kneeling at Fatima in the chapel of the apparitions in prayer. He had taught theology at a major seminary in Rome before he became bishop of Fatima. Our Lady of Fatima had chosen as Her bishop a prelate of great learning (fluent in several languages) and of Holiness.
Written on the tomb of his predecessor in the Basilica of Fatima is the simple inscription: "Here lies the Bishop of Our Lady." On Bishop Venancio's tomb could be written: "Here lies the Bishop of the Queen of the World."
In this major "encyclical" of his episcopate, he says that no matter who we are or what may be our state of life, we are ALL called to respond to the requests of the Sacred Hearts.
The Bishop Explains
Following are a few excerpts adapted from that message which appears in its entirety at the end of my book Dear Bishop!.
Please read them as words from Our Lady of Fatima Herself.
"There are millions of people who have never felt called to an apostolate.
"For instance, there are the great number of children, old people, invalids, plus millions of parents absorbed exclusively from morning to night in household chores, the care of their children, or their work in fields or factory, without either the time or the possibility of intense involvement in the apostolate.
"Our Lady, who came to the children of Fatima, calls them all.
"It can be, and it is, the great and important task of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima (the World Apostolate of Fatima) to mobilize these vast reserves of the faithful and bring them into conscientious service of the Church, to collaborate with other movements and to give new life to the various forms of apostolic activity.
"All the persons mentioned above (children, old people, invalids, parents), even if they may suffer some physical of psychological problems, can respond to the requests made by the Queen of the Rosary.
"They can pray, they can make sacrifices, they can expiate, they can live and work according to the desires of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thus they will fulfill the essential part of the sprit of the message, the great work to which we all are called: the interior renovation of the Church.
Nothing New
The bishop quotes at some length from the encyclical of Pius XI on Atheistic Communism, which says: "There are too many who fulfill more or less faithfully the more essential obligations of the religion they boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it better or deepening their inward conviction... In these days when the winds of strife and persecution blow so fiercely, they will be swept away defenseless in this new deluge which threatens the world."
Following the words of the Pope, the bishop continues:
"An attraction of the Blue Army (the message of Fatima) is that it asks nothing new. The old devotional practices of the Church, carried out with greater fervor of spirit, will suffice.
"The task of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima consists in making known to the whole world the Message of Fatima by all the means at its disposal so that men of all nations will make it real in their personal lives.
"If anyone asks, 'Why the Blue Army?,' we ask in return: 'Why did Our Lady come to Fatima with these requests (which are fulfilled in the Blue Army pledge)?'
"Why? Because men so often turn a deaf ear to the voice of the Church. So, God sends His Immaculate Mother to remind men in an extraordinary manner of these obligations.
A Call to ALL
"At the same time, God is reminding the Church. (Pope John Paul II said: "The message of Fatima in a certain way compels the Church.")
"The message of Fatima is addressed to all men without exception, regardless of any ecclesiastical organization. So the Blue Army is addressed to all, and is open to all.
"To be already a member of any Marian association does not justify a refusal to join the Blue Army. This is not a movement apart from others. In harmony with the message of Fatima, it seeks to bring every individual to pray more than they ever did before, to do penance for the sins of the world, and to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
"It follows that each and every form of the Apostolate of the laity, animated by this spiritual renewal for which Our Lady came at Fatima, will reap inestimable profit in personal sanctification of the individual and of the entire apostolate.
Special Call to Marian Devotees
"It would be a lamentable error to see in the Blue Army nothing more than a tributary stream to other Marian movements. Not at all. These Marian move-ments should be the first to seek to understand and to fulfill the message of the Queen of Heaven. They should form the vanguard of the Army of the 'Conqueror in all the battles of God.'
"The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima calls to each and all, great and small, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant. In this combat, every man of good will is engaged. And peace belongs to those who are united in the fight.
"We have arrived at a very definite crossroads in the history of the world. The future hangs in the balance. The powers of darkness, in an apocalyptic effort, advance in united strength to try to blot out the name of God from the entire world.
"It is into this battle that Our Lady comes, having appeared at Fatima to bring us Her message from Heaven, to place in our hands the arms of victory."
This and other books by John M. Haffert
God's
Final Effort | Too Late? | The Day I Didn't Die